Here comes the housekeeping post, bro.

01Aug

Is it only Wednesday?

We left off here at a ridiculous hour Sunday morning with my vow to get my gameday scarf signed by Kris Boyd at the TA season ticket-holder barbecue. Alas, I was thwarted by the front office who, it appears, did not make this a priority event for the first team. Or a large percentage of the reserves team. Or, not surprisingly, the coaching staff.

I’m of two minds on this one. One side says, hey, we don’t own these guys. They should get time off, away from the lot of us. The other side says, yeah, but without us, they’re playing to a silent stadium. I’d like to fully buy in to the conspiracy theory that this is Gavin being Gavin, finding another way to separate the TA from the team, but I think the reality is that the FO fears that we might not have been as kind as we should have been with the players.

Whatever. I wanted my scarf signed and, in an effort to troll one of my Twitter friends from up north, I wanted to touch Mike Fucito.

Regardless of where you stand on this one, I didn’t get the scarf signed but did manage to take a few minutes to, quite literally, roll around on the pitch like I was six. Except I probably wouldn’t have done that when I was six.

If you’re following along on Twitter, you know I’ve been in touch with my ticket rep who has taken pity (despite there being no pity in the Rose City, he’s had some brought in just for such an occasion) on me and has made arrangements for me to get said scarf signed. And, as it would happen, I might even get to touch Mike Fucito, which sounds creepier than it actually is. (Speaking of creepy, I came home from the barbecue with Eric Alexander’s pants. Charity auction, people. Calm down.)

Looking back, Monday seems quaint. I had a minor flip-out when a mainstream news guy likened the battalion of Timbers bloggers to the recent influx of porn-bots on the #RCTID hashtag. For the record, I may have over-reacted but here’s the deal: I’m super careful about what words I put out into the world (despite the number of typos I miss before posting) and I wasn’t keen on the comparison. He and I have discussed this and all is well. Onward.

The first bit of stupid yesterday had my phone buzzing before I was even out of bed. Oh, Valencia.

Here’s the account as it stands: 20-year old Colombian Trencito gets a call from home, is upset, gets a little noisy and goes out to his car to get a phone card to call his mom. The neighbors get all wacky and the police are called. So, language barrier, cultural background, middle of the night, nosey neighbors; everything seems to pile up and our kid gets arrested.

I was more than a bit stunned. I see a headline saying a Timber has been arrested, this kid is pretty low on the list of Timbers I think it might be. But, as more and more info comes out, it looks like just a build up of frustration for a kid who just wants to play ball. He’s left his family and come to this crazy place with all these crazy people. He doesn’t speak a lick of English and, with this freak injury, can’t do what he came here to do. I’m surprised it took him this long to snap. I’m hoping this will be a snap-to for the FO. Get the kid more involved. If he needs help dealing with all of is, make sure he gets help. Somos Timbers, people. Somos Timbers.

The story might have faded by noon except that Cubbie had to pop up on Twitter and get all mouthy and call someone “bro” when he was questioned about some previous tweets about the whole mess. You’re a professional journalist covering a team that has a very tight-knit community woven around it. You, a guy we assume doesn’t want to be doing the job in the first place, should be aware that when you get mouthy with one of us, another 600 of us will pile on, bro. And thus, Timbers faithful, Cubbie filled our Twitter timelines with bro jokes but he himself was the biggest bro joke out there.

So, that’s the balance of the last two days: a vague derision of Timbers bloggers as a whole and Cubbie, a one-man reason to only get your Timbers news from bloggers, bro.

What else? There’s some significant chatter about Sean McCauley, the recently-arrived assistant coach that Gavin says isn’t a candidate to fill Spenny’s shoes, actually being the guy who will fill Spenny’s shoes.

And there was a Merritt Paulson tweet today that I interpreted as a swing at Boyd. Or at the fans. Or higher alien life forms. I’m entirely unsure, but I think it might call for us to all wear tinfoil hats on Sunday. Or something. I think Merritt might have finally snapped. If he wants to talk it out, I’m available. I’m told I’m a good listener.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be less bizarre, but I’m not counting on it.

One more thing: Harper’s Playground still needs some cash. Here’s a good way for you to provide some and bring home a fantastic piece of art in the process:

I think that’s it for now. Well, there’s one more thing, but I’ll wait until details are finalized. Let’s just say, there may be an opportunity in the near future for me to make an ass of myself in yet another format. And I blame you people.